Hummus -- The Chickpea Variations

When life hands you lemons, make hummus. I'm afraid I took that adage seriously, and made a rather lemony hummus. See, I hate raw garlic. Loathe it. I'm not judging all you raw garlic lovers out there, and I'm not trying to convert you to my anti-raw garlic ways. I know there are many supposed and even demonstrated health benefits from raw garlic, however I would postulate that when it comes to raw onion and raw garlic, I seem to have a bit of a food sensitivity. So, you will find no raw garlic and no raw onion in my recipes. Now, I suppose I could have oven roasted some garlic whilst roasting my sesame seeds. However, I didn't.

What I did instead was use some less traditional flavour enhancers.  Your typical hummus calls for garlic, tahini, lemon, parsley, and salt. I kicked the lemon up a bright and sunshiny notch, added some  cumin, chili powder, sea salt, black pepper, and of course parsley. The result is a flavour that is bright and fresh. I think it's possible to reduce the amount of lemon without sacrificing the integrity of the hummus, but I have to admit I like it like this.

Toasting sesame seeds in a ceramic pan

equipment:

food processor
coffee/seed grinder


ingredients:

2 cups cooked chickpeas (or canned -- rinse well)
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp sesame seeds -- toasted, then finey ground in your seed grinder
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder

4 tbsp fresh parsley , chopped, and more for garnish

1 cup water


directions:

1. puree the chickpeas with the water and lemon juice until smooth and pleasing
2. add the ground sesame seeds, sea salt, cumin, chili powder
3. smile and do a little dance
4. when fully mixed and adjusted for taste, pulse in the chopped parsley (you don't want the parsley to become completely homogenized. Unless you do, in which case whizz away, my friend.)
5. garnish with parsley

We used this as a dip for carrot medallions, put some on lettuce leaves and rolled them up, and spread it on crackers. It can be thinned down to use as a sauce for steamed broccoli etc. It can stay unrefrigerated during the day, so can be put into a small container and taken for lunch with carrots to dip in it. Some schools prohibit the use of sesame in addition to all nuts, so if this is the case, either substitute raw hearts or ground roasted pumpkin seeds for the sesame seeds, or skip it entirely. I'm going to be so screwed when my son starts school if his lunches can't include nuts of any kind!!

Hummus seems to have great appeal for toddlers, which is convenient for me, as this creamy combination of chickpeas and sesame seeds is high in protein, iron, calcium, fiber, etc. Not to mention high in deliciousness ....